Tonight, the Sioux Falls City Council will be discussing its legislative priorities for the 2020 legislative session. Among them is the support of repealing presumptive probation.
The ACLU of South Dakota opposes the repeal of presumptive probation. Repealing presumptive probation would not benefit Sioux Falls or help combat addiction in the state.
Presumptive probation, which was signed into law in 2013 as part of the Public Safety Improvement Act, requires that, when sentencing people for Class 5 or Class 6 felonies — classifications that include many common low-level, non-violent drug offenses — courts are to sentence the person to probation, rather than penitentiary time. It allows low-level offenders to rehabilitate their lives without adding to the state’s overcrowded prison population.
“The concept of putting fewer people behind bars may seem like a difficult stance to take in a state as conservative as South Dakota, but tough-on-crime policies can’t fix society’s problems – especially in regards to addiction,” said Libby Skarin, policy director for the ACLU of South Dakota. “While there are examples of offenders who are a true threat to public safety and require incarceration, many others are nonviolent offenders whose sentences do more harm than their underlying crimes.
Presumptive probation still allows judges to sentence low-level offenders to prison time if they believe it is warranted – a necessary element to ensuring judges make decisions based on their expertise and knowledge of the facts in each individual case.
According to the Legislative Research Council, repealing presumptive probation would cost South Dakota taxpayers more than $53 million over 10 years.
About the ACLU of South Dakota
Based in Sioux Falls, the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of civil liberties and civil rights. The ACLU of South Dakota is part of a three-state chapter that also includees North Dakota and Wyoming. The team in South Dakota is supported by staff in those states.
The ACLU believes freedoms of press, speech, assembly, and religion, and the rights to due process, equal protection and privacy, are fundamental to a free people. In addition, the ACLU seeks to advance constitutional protections for groups traditionally denied their rights, including people of color, women, and the LGBTQ communities. The ACLU of South Dakota carries out its work through selective litigation, lobbying at the state and local level, and through public education and awareness of what the Bill of Rights means for the people of South Dakota.
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